Fergie's Tech Blog

Friday Monkey Blogging: Chimp Plays Surrogate to Tiger Cubs

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I have started a regularly recurring blog entry meme every Friday afternoon, inspired by Bruce Schneier's regular series of "Friday Squid Blogging" posts, and my very own maddening Monkey Theory.

Here is this week's installment.

Via The Daily Mail.

When two white tiger cubs were born during a hurricane they had to be separated from their mother after their sanctuary flooded.

However they have since found an unlikely surrogate mother in chimpanzee Anjana, who has taken on the role of caring for the cubs.

The two-year-old chimp has been helping keeper China York care for the 21-day-old cubs at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina.

'Mitra and Shiva, were born during Hurricane Hannah,' said Dr Bhagavan, founder of TIGERS. "During that time everything flooded in the sanctuary and they had to be moved into the house as their mother became stressed.

'It was important for their safety that they were separated.'

Placed into the care of infant animal care giver China and her chimpanzee companion, Anjna, the cubs have become almost inseparable from their new motherly figures.

posted by Fergie @ 1/02/2009 05:43:00 PM